Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. He is the author of several books, including most recently The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relations with North and South Korea, co-authored with Ted Galen Carpenter (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)

Who's Bearing the Burden?

July 13, 2005

The all-volunteer force (AVF) is failing, explains Andrew Bacevich in an article in Commonweal magazine. The American public will soon face a fundamental choice: they can either continue to pursue a policy of militarized hegemony, or they can insulate themselves from the costs that hegemony entails. They cannot do both.

Ethical Realism 7.13.05

July 07, 2005

Ethical Realism: A Bi-Partisan Consensus for the 21st Century
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
12:15 pm-1:45 pm

The New America Foundation will host a discussion with Anatol Lieven, Fellow with the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, and John Hulsman, a Research Fellow at the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation. The event will be moderated National Interest Executive Editor, and Nixon Center Senior Fellow, Nikolas Gvosdev.

In the Summer 2005 issue of The National Interest, Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman examine recent foreign policy adventures through the lens of realist philosophy crafted by Hans Morgenthau and Rienhold Niebuhr. These mid-20th century realists, along with their contemporary George Kennan, understood that good intentions do not absolve policy makers of the consequences of failure. How can ethical realism deal with 21st century threats? What can contemporary policy makers learn from the theorists of a bygone era? Hulsman and Lieven will explore these and other questions.